The article questions commonly circulated stereotypes about gender and presents and alternative way of thinking about gender. It reflects about a recent statement made by a politician about men's aggressiveness being natural, it seeks to say that there are indeed alternative ways in which men's actions may be imagined.

Who can deny the fact
that we live in times where we have become so vulnerable at least as
far as the gender question is concerned that even a slightly loose
comment on the question of gender equity or let us say how women are
visualized within the walls of the society comes to be seen as highly
problematic.

Despite living in a
patriarchal context that runs itself based on the dominative male
ego, in the contemporary times exposure to feminist consciousness
even if it be at a very elementary stage has aroused the interest of
the youth and the sensitive people at large.

In
Focus

On the one hand we have ideas of gender sensitivity,
increased mobilization based on how women should be treated in
society, numerous organization fighting for the independence and
empowerment of women and so on and yet on the opposite end of the
spectrum it is within the same societal context that we witness
crimes and atrocities against women everyday. Of how gruesome or
violent these actions against women can be, needs no description.

Everyday the media bombards us with images of the
women as a victim, as somebody through whom a man gives birth to his
ugly desires. The women and her body become sites where a certain man
tried to establish his authority, he became an animal or even worse a
demon just because he could not find another medium of articulating
his energies.

Thus, from a little girl to an elder women all
become his victims. Is this ultimately where our consciousness should
take us?

The man and the woman together symbolize the
holistic quality of the world, when their hearts meet paradise is
created on Earth but when one begins to see the other only as a tool
for gratification, it becomes very utilitarian.

Sadly, instead of condemning and taking an action, a
senior politician recently said that rapes, molestation and teasing
were natural and not so much issue of worry because after all “men
will be men”, such a remark causes great concern to those who still
have faith in human agencies, and see even men’s violence as
unnatural and abnormal.

It must be reminded to him who made such a bizarre
statement that men like Rabindranath Tagore saw immense possibilities
in women and saw in them the seeds of civilization, his iconic heroes
Anondomoyi, Binodini or Laita were all great women of immense
character strength and who despite being in domesticity transcended
all walls of patriarchal bondage. Or Joytirao Phule who fought
against all stereotypes of caste and gender and started the noble
cause of ‘educating the low caste girl child,. And Mandela who
spoke bravely for emancipation of women.

I ask, were these men not great contributors in the
wealth of humanity, were they not iconic figures that brought light
into the world even in its darkest storms?

These men did not succumb to their primeval
instincts and practice crime against women they didn’t see the
women as a thing that they could use at their disposal, instead they
visualized women as equal partner who together constituted the
world..

Being a man is about being a partner, its about
sharing the world with the woman. If we must say that men will be
men, let men be like those men who walked with women, who respected
them and saw them with dignity - because no matter how rapidly things
decline, we can’t think that criminality is our basic nature, that
rape and molestation give us inner peace, and if we see them in such
a way we are diseased if not dead.

There is a need for all of us to come together, and
to reflect upon the ethos of contemporary civilization. To recall the
great work that men and women together have done. And how deserts
have been converted to gardens, that is our original inclination and
we must get it back.

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